Tag: Romans 12:1

I had the privilege of being interviewed on the radio about my new ministry, MybodyMyworship. When the audio recording becomes available, I’ll share it with you, but in the meantime, here is the transcript.

Katharine: I’m Katharine Wang and you’re listening Radio Fairfax in Fairfax, VA. This is Keys to Spiritual Growth. Today we’re going to answer listener questions live on the radio.

But first a reminder that you’re listening to Radio Fairfax, Fairfax, VA. Cablecast on Cox and Verizon FIOS Channel 37 and Comcast channel 27 in Reston, VA. Webcast worldwide on the internet at www.radiofairfax.org.

We’re live once a month answering questions about God and the Bible. I like to think of it as the type of question you’d like to ask God if you could pull up and chair and maybe grab a cup of tea and ask him something. We take questions in advance and also live right now. The call in number is 703-560-TALK. That’s 703-560-8255. Or on Facebook at facebook.com/mbministries.

Katharine: I’m here with my friend Lorelei, who’s going to tell us what questions we’ve received from listeners this past month. Lorelei, you couldn’t be with us last month. It’s good to have you back.

Lorelei: It’s good to be back.

Katharine: Before you tell us the first question from listeners, did I tell you we have two special guests on the show?

Lorelei: You did. I’m excited about meeting them.

Katharine: Yes, Cheryl Krichbaum is here with Michele Bair. Cheryl is the founder of a new ministry called My body My worship, which I’m excited to hear about. Michele is going to be part of this ministry, too.

Lorelei: Welcome to Keys to Spiritual Growth with Katharine Wang. We’re excited to have you on the show today.

Cheryl: We’re excited to be here.

Katharine: So Cheryl, you grew up in Minnesota going to church with your family, but it was more of a tradition that you did and you didn’t really believe Christianity or have its power.

Cheryl: Yeah, I didn’t understand what Christ’s sacrifice was about. I knew all the Bible stories, but I didn’t understand what they meant for me. When life got difficult, I turned my back on church and on God then made some pretty big mistakes. I became even more bitter against God. But then I met a man who wasn’t scared away by my life. In retrospect, I can see that he was showing me what the love of Christ was like. To make a long story short, he prayed for me, I accepted Christ, and then we got married.

Katharine: Let’s fast forward. Tell us about your trip to Africa.

Cheryl: I was in Uganda just over a year ago on a short-term mission trip. I had taught your Bible studies to children and had met a 5-year-old boy with Down Syndrome. That night I was asking one of the pastors about special needs children in Uganda and Africa which led to a discussion about abortion. The pastor said that he preaches on how our words often send women to have abortions. And that’s when I knew I needed to change the conversation about abortion.

Katharine: So you realized that the way the church talks about abortion can be damaging to women? How should the conversation change?

Cheryl: The pro-life movement usually talks about babies, trying to convince the abortion-minded that killing babies is wrong–and it is wrong. But the pro-choice movement is talking about women and women’s rights, not babies. Women choose abortion because they think it’s best for themselves. We are ego-centric people and Millenials even more so. We need to have conversations about women and the psychological damage that results from abortion. If they are Christians, then we also need to talk about the spiritual darkness they plunge themselves into when they have abortions. We need to have loving conversations that draw women into life–physically and spiritually.

Katharine: So women-centered, eternally-focused conversations about abortion. I like that. This topic has a personal interest to you, doesn’t it?

Cheryl: Yes, when life got difficult and I left the church and God, I went looking for love elsewhere. I spent more time with my boyfriend than in my parents’ home because life was difficult at home but pleasant with my boyfriend. Not surprisingly, I got pregnant. Because I didn’t want the shame of pregnancy in high school and because I wanted to stay on track with my education, I had an abortion. And then I made more bad choices, like living with my boyfriend, buying a house with him, and eventually marrying him even though I knew deep inside that I shouldn’t have. That marriage ended in divorce. And, by the way, I still had the shame of pregnancy in high school, and my education was not completed on schedule.

Katharine: What a powerful personal story. And now you’re founding a ministry called My Body My Worship. How is your work different from what other pro-life groups do?

Cheryl: We battle abortion in a way different than all other pro-life ministries–through true worship and teaching the nations all that Jesus commanded (Romans 12:1, Matthew 28:20). We do this through women’s conferences and social media posts.

Our mission is to inspire spiritual acts of worship by teaching biblically sound science of sexual integrity and psychological effects of abortion–based on Romans 12:1-2 and 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.

Katharine: Michele, that’s where you come in. You’ve been a worshipper and a worship leader at your church for more than 20 years.

Michele: Yes, one thing I’ve learned in over 20 years of leading worship is that our bodies, souls, and spirits are intertwined. When we worship, it washes out our spirits and souls. It’s like taking a spiritual shower. All the filth and grime of the day washes off, and we’re filled with God’s presence.

Katharine: And you’ve named the ministry My body my worship? Why?

Cheryl: The pro-choice movement says, “My body. My choice.” We say that it’s our choice to worship with our bodies. As Michele says, our worship and our bodies are intertwined. There are many ways to worship–with hymns, on our knees, with lifted hands, even dancing. But the New Testament believer should also worship with their whole bodies in a Levitical sense, meaning that they should be pure before the Lord.

We get this from Romans 12:1, which says: Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Michele: We are also using worship as King Jehoshaphat in the Bible did to defeat his enemies. In 2 Chronicles 20, we see that the kingdom of Judah was about to be attacked by many enemies. King Jehoshaphat immediately went to the Lord. He called the country to pray and fast. Then he sent out a worship team ahead of the army. And GOD defeated their enemies.

Cheryl: We too are at war–spiritual war. Women (and men, but most obviously women) are under attack–even from other women. Women are fooled into thinking that abortion is no big deal. We are fooled into believing that we can have safe sex outside of marriage. We abort in order to avoid the shame of being caught pregnant out of wedlock, and then we hide our abortions because we are ashamed.

Katharine: A lot of people think of abortion as a political issue. But you don’t. Explain.

Cheryl: We don’t think God sees abortion as a political issue. When you embrace Daniel chapter 4, you can’t help but realize that God is in control of who is in office. I do believe that God is unhappy with His Christian nation legalizing abortion, so yes, we need to de-fund Planned Parenthood and reverse Roe v Wade.

But God is unhappy with our hearts and is waiting for us, for Christians, to act like Christ. The real victory in this spiritual war is saving eternal lives of abortion-minded women and men here in the United States and around the world. The Church is bigger than our country and so is spiritual war.

So, we’re going to battle by worshipping through music, lifted hands, etc. and by teaching what both the Bible and science say about abortion and about sex.

Katharine: That’s intriguing. Both the Bible and science.

Cheryl: Yes, both the Bible and science because scientific research supports all the biblical laws about sex–Which is no surprise, right? since God created science.

Katharine: Can you tell me just one thing scientific research has found that supports what the Bible says about sex and abortion?

Cheryl: The hormones that are activated in us when we have sex bond us with our partner. So when people have heterosexual or homosexual sex, they feel bonded to that person. The Bible says, the two shall become one, which is reiterated in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. When women break that bond, their emotions are affected and often they become depressed or develop anxiety. When men break that bond, they often become jealous ex-boyfriends.

Katharine: Wow. So our bodies were physically designed to operate best when we make a marriage connection to just one person. Alright, shifting gears a little, I’d love to hear what you would say to a woman who has an unplanned pregnancy right now who is thinking about an abortion?

Cheryl: When I had my abortion, I plunged myself into darkness. Even before there was a TV show called “The Walking Dead,” I described myself as the walking dead. I looked alive. I acted happy. But I wasn’t. I was dead inside. When you choose death for what is growing inside of you, you also choose death for yourself and Satan wins. God loves you so much that He doesn’t want the pain of abortion for you.

Katharine: What would you say to a young woman thinking about having sex before getting married?

Michele: As young women, we were told it’s OK to have sex as long as you use birth control. Today they called it “safer” sex. But the Bible doesn’t say that it’s okay to have sex if we use birth control. God says the only way to fully experience the beauty that He made sex to be is to have it with just the one person of the opposite sex to whom you are married. In fact, sex outside marriage is so dangerous–both physically and spiritually–it can scar our bodies, emotions, and spirits forever. Until we ask Jesus to heal those wounds.

Cheryl: The biggest advantage of sexual purity, of course, is obeying God–this is your spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1) and your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). When our spirits are pure, we can hear more clearly from the Lord and become like spiritual superheroes. Nothing is impossible for us spiritually. When we live with sin, it’s like Superman meets kryptonite. Sin drains our spiritual power. Sex outside of marriage makes us weaklings spiritually. We can’t hear God, and we can be easily defeated. Sexual purity gives us spiritual super-strength. It keeps our emotions free of deep wounds.

But it also keeps our physical bodies free of so many diseases. For example, HPV is so prevalent now that we have a vaccine for it. Women are biologically more susceptible to HPV than men and get it even if the condom works perfectly.

We need to change the conversation about abortion. We need to talk about abortion and sex more in church than in politics. We need to teach our generation and the generations after us. This is not a young person’s issue. This is a heart issue of all the generations. All the generations need healing. And in a 2 Chronicles 7:14 way, all generations need to repent and seek God’s face if we want revival–and we believe our conferences will spark revival.

Katharine: What about a woman who has already had an abortion, like yourself, Cheryl? What would you say to someone like you?

Cheryl: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). If we want life, if we want to stop being the walking dead, then we have to accept Jesus’ love for us. I chose Christ and then later admitted to Him that I was wrong to have an abortion. And He immediately washed away my sins, and I felt clean and alive. You can have that freedom, too. Start with Psalm 51 and then contact your local pregnancy center for a post-abortion healing class. You can also seek a healing ministry or attend one of our conferences.

Katharine: I’ve never had an abortion, but I lost two children in utero, so I understand the guilt and feelings of loss that we feel anytime we lose a pregnancy. And I can also tell you that our children are with God. I believe I will spend eternity with them. And they always have a place in our hearts. Their short lives served a purpose here even if they were never born.

Cheryl: Yes. And our babies love us and forgive us. They are in heaven waiting for their moms. And those babies whose moms do not know Christ are crying. We Christians have got to share the Gospel with post-abortive women so that those babies are consoled and reconciled some day with their mothers in heaven.

Katharine: Amazing work you’re both doing Cheryl and Michele. If someone wanted to find out more about your work, how could they do it?

Cheryl: Our website is MybodyMyworship.org. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We also do MybodyMyworship conferences at churches. You can find out information about how to get involved or how to bring a conference to your church on our website. We honestly believe that worshipping the Lord in this way will spark revival.